. . . erm . . . Aphasia!

. . . erm . . . Aphasia!

Hello, come in, I’ll put the . . . thingy . . . on
Water thingy, boiling tool . . . kettle!
I’ll put the kettle on.

I’m so excited to see you, I’ve got so much to say
I’ve been rehearsing it all day
But when I try to tell you, the . . . wotsits . . . erm . . . words!
(Seriously, how do you forget the word for words?)
The words don’t want to play.

And then you ask me a question
On a thing that I love to talk about
My brain lights fireworks of meaning
That fizzle out when they reach my mouth

And the words, they . . . erm . . . that thing that cattle do.
No, not moo.  That thing when there’s loads of them?
Stampede, that’s it.  Stampede!

The words stampede across my tongue
Like Black Friday shoppers in the middle of Lidl
Trampling all sense underfoot
Irrelevant and wrong.

But amidst all this lexical carnage
Escaped from this thesaurus on fire
One word remains, ever-present and strong
And useful, and fit. 
And that word is . . .

. . . ah, shit!


January 2023

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